


An Imbecile and a Fool

by PaxCallow



Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, One Shot, Woods Stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 12:35:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11253297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxCallow/pseuds/PaxCallow
Summary: Max and Johnny briefly become boy scouts. Johnny brought soda and Max brought insecurity.





	An Imbecile and a Fool

**Author's Note:**

> this isn't a new fic, just a cleaned up better version of one that i wrote at the beginning of the year for a fun bulmag event on tumblr! i might clean up the others too, because i wrote a few. we'll see. i hope you enjoy! johnny and max are newly boyfriended and awkward.

                Don’t get Max wrong, he lo—he li—well, he’s at least a little fond of Johnny. You know? Which is good! Because apparently they’re boyfriends now, and that’s… how that… should work. So it’s good.

                He’s fond of Johnny, but he was slightly less than eager to do a school project with him. For reasons that should be clear if one is familiar with Johnny.

                He steps over a trip-level tree root and continues down the forest path, glancing around at the undergrowth for any distinct plants that aren’t poison ivy or like… generic grass-things. Or spirit algae. No such luck yet. But keeping his gaze firmly on the plants around him is giving him a pretty good excuse not to shoot obvious stares at his traveling partner.

                “We got clovers and acorns,” Johnny mumbles to the sound of flipping paper, breaking through Max’s shield of incredible awkwardness and pretending Johnny isn’t there, “We still need ramps, purslane, and—m-morels. This is takin’ forever.”

                Their assignment? Become foragers in the woods of Mayview. Collect samples of wild edible plants and take them back to HQ without eating them. Simple! But for the past rough hour, Max has been awaiting the storm of team-crippling behaviors because Johnny.

                “The good news is, Johnny, that you probably won’t die when you inevitably eat the plants we’re looking for.” He pauses, shaking his head at the irresponsibility of encouraging children to find _potentially_ edible things in the wild. “Unless we find mushrooms that aren’t morels. Then you will die.”

                “Says we’re not s’posed to. Eat the stuff, I mean.”

                “Exactly, J-Boy.”

                Johnny farts at him in response. And says and does nothing else. His boyfriend, everyone. … God, stop saying that word. When he asked you out it was probably just a _joke_ and it’s probably still a _joke_ just stop thinking about it and—

                “Are these ramps?”

                Max turns toward Johnny’s voice. He’s standing in a little patch of curved, pointed leaves sprouting out of the ground and staring down at his handout. Tiny radish-shaped spirits whiz around his head like pesky flies. Max approaches to investigate and kneels by the little plants.

                Looks right to him. “Yeah, there’s a 90’s kid getting mad air off them.”

                He goes on to say that they’d have to dig one up to know for _sure,_ and before Max can get out the trowel they’ve been supplied with, Johnny tears that sucker out of the earth with his bare hands.

                And the _science paper_ they’ve been supplied with says yes! These _are_ ramps! Johnny places the one he’d harvested in their quaint lunchbox and ramps are checked off their list. That’s another one down.

                “We’re making great time!” Johnny declares sunnily. “How ‘bout a siddown?”

                Max cocks his head in questioning as Johnny sits himself down on a felled tree and roots through that same lunchbox. “You just said this was taking forever…?”

                “Yep. Perfect excuse t’be discouraged into procrastinating with a soda break!” He replies, abruptly pulls an aluminum can out of the lunchbox and wings it Max’s way. Max gasps as the projectile flies at him, and fumbles it several times before miraculously securing a grasp on it.

                He looks down at it in his hand, studying its existence more than he should really just be thinking, _man, I could use a soda, actually!_ “You brought soda?”

                “Yeah, like they _gave_ us a lunchbox and expected me not to put soda in it,” Johnny grins, taking a second out for himself. “A lunchbox without sodas is like a beach without me wrestlin’ every seagull there.”

                “You know, I would question both of those things, but one of them seems a lot more pressing than the other,” Max says to dead air, and then eventually gives up and sits down next to Johnny on the log. And immediately, this warm feeling spreads throughout his chest. Oh shut up, you sucker.

                Both cans open simultaneously with the ultimate satisfying sound of an unsealing soda can. And for a few minutes or so, the two boys remain in silence, enjoying unhealthy, sugary bevvs and sitting in the shifting yellow and green light of the sun filtering through the trees. Soda in the woods.

                This may come as a shock, but ever since Max and Johnny became friends and started hanging out without animosity—well, with _less_ animosity, there would come times between them where silence would fall and it wouldn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable. It would just be there between the two of them, with no fear of breaking it or an overwhelming _need_ to break it.

                It’s always really been something else to Max, when he considers the dynamic he shares with Johnny, just how _easy_ it is to hang out with him like this.

                Even after Johnny dropped the whole, “I’m gonna ask you out apropos of nothing and act like it’s no big deal at all and then not bring it up except in ways that you can’t really tell if I’m joking or not?” thing on him.

                He almost smiles to himself, but pushes the fluffy thoughts down before his brain can get stupid on him. He needs to be on his A-game in case Johnny sets their project ablaze for funsies by… well…

                Max looks over at him and sips his soda. … Well, he actually hasn’t seen warning signs of a blaze yet.

                “You’ve been surprisingly patient with this project.”

                “Ya think I can’t look at a plant?” Johnny asks, squinting threateningly at him. “Ya think I can’t find a stuff in a woods and mark it off onna piece of paper?”

                Max chuckles. He hasn’t been threatened by Johnny in a while. He puts his hands up defensively and raises a brow. “Hey, it’s a school assignment. _You_ like to be contrary to authority, Jhonny. You know it’d be right up your alley to totally ignore this project.”

                Johnny deflates, but he deflates into a grin. “‘Kay, it is right up my alley.” And for a moment, he thinks. “… Welll… it’s not about the project, really.” And he gives a simple shrug.

                “It’s about th’ date!”

                Max knows _exactly_ what his brain leapt to but only guessing what Johnny’s meant, cautiously begins, “Tueeesday, theee—?”

                “No, you _mega dork,_ ” Johnny interrupts, shaking his head. He throws an arm out and gestures like… outwardly. “The date we’re on! This date! We’re in th’ forest, we have soda, we’re boyfriends, it’s a date!”

                _NOPE,_ apparently his brain and Johnny’s brain meant the same thing! He swallows hard after Johnny speaks. A date? Is it a date because they’re “dating” and that automatically makes it one? Maybe Johnny thinks so.

                But then again. There’s that tone of his. Talking about it so casually, like it’s no big deal, almost like it’s funny… What is Max supposed to say to something like that? What could he say that wouldn’t potentially make a fool out of him by… taking it more seriously than Johnny does?

                “I-I don’t—” he stammers. And the words just kind of come out. “I don’t think this is a date.”

                “No?” Johnny mumbles, suddenly very invested in and trying into peer into the depths of his soda can. And now for some reason, Max immediately regrets what he just said. He scrambles for more words.

                “I mean, like,” _(I don’t think you think it is.)_ “The _school_ made us do this, right?” He goes on, trying to force the jest into his voice. But his heart is thumping. “They partnered us up to do this but they never explicitly said, ‘go on a date.’ If they did, that’d be a different story! A—A date story.”

                Johnny is quietly smirking at the forest floor for a while. “… You… think a school would do a project and just have it be like, ‘go ask someone on a date an’ bring ‘em back here to prove it?’”

                Max thinks that’s already a thing. It’s called highschool prom. But he’s so relieved that the topic is off of the two of them, specifically, that he snorts and adds onto the non-joke, “Yeah. ‘Take your loved one to a park and write a five paragraph essay about it.’”

                Johnny straightens up, piling on more. “’Find yer idiot butt a boyfriend for ten extra credit points. And hecka street cred.’”

                Max sniggers. “‘D-Don’t even come to school. Just flipping ask someone to see a movie with you.’”

                Johnny laughs too, grinning off into the distance. He tilts his head and after a moment, goes to check the calendar on his phone. Max takes the time to shake his soda can. Empty. How long have they been sitting here chilling?

                “Aright.” Johnny clunks his empty can back into the lunchbox and puts Max’s there too for ups to mother nature. He stands from the log, brushing the dirt off his butt and half-smiling down at Max. “You wanna keep going, boyo?”

                “Sounds fine to me,” Max murmurs, standing too.

                They’re on their way again, walking through the carpet of pine needles and the warmth that Spring has graciously brought them early. As Johnny takes the lead ahead of him, whacking through the underbrush with a random stick, Max stretches and sighs and puts a hand over his mildly aching… left… chest-ish area.

                He can only hope that whatever they have left to find throws itself at their feet so he can take a break from hanging out with his new boyfriend. Because it’s hard. Sometimes.

                … And it’s hard sometimes because it’s so easy, most of the time.

                Which Max doesn’t get at _all._

 


End file.
